The relationship between domain-specific and domain-general measures of intuition may help to understand differences in the use of intuition among experts and novices in the nursing field. According to King and Clark (2002), the difference ‘appeared to not be in the presence or absence of intuition, but rather in the expert’s ability to use intuition much more skillfully and effectively’ (p. 327). Botti and Reeve (2003) hypothesised that student nurses rely more on their general problem-solving ability rather than their domain-specific knowledge to make clinical decisions. Although they are in the process of acquiring nursing expertise, students bring life experience to the discipline of nursing and may be novice only in domain-specific knowledge. Further, use of intuition in nursing practice is not related exclusively to prior experience as nurse; it is also related to prior experiences with intuition (Ruth-Sahd & Tisdell 2007). Ruth-Sahd and Tisdell noted that their adult participants had greater awareness of and confidence in their intuitive abilities before entering nursing. In fact, lack of experience in the field has been cited as a reason that novice nurses may prefer not to rely on their intuition (McCutcheon & Pincombe 2001). This has important implications, therefore, both domain-specific and domain-general intuition must be measured to fully understand the use of intuition in nursing.
To depict the true nature of nurses’ decision making at varying levels of clinical expertise, measures that test domain-specific and domain-general preference for intuition must be administered concurrently. This study tested nurses at all stages of development – from undergraduate through experienced practicing nurses – to determine differences in the preference for and reported use of intuition in nursing practice. Understanding the phenomenon of intuition among nurses is essential to advance a unique body of knowledge generated in and applied to academic and clinical settings.